What Your Mother Should've Told You and Nobody Else Will

By Natalie Reilly

A collection of answers for 21st-century dilemmas, from the seemingly minor—like in-flight etiquette, to the top 10 lessons of life—including how to survive a set-back For anyone who has ever lost sleep over how to properly end a friendship, wondered how to recover from an e-mail faux pas at work, or longed to appear smarter at a dinner party, here is the book with the answers. It is an ironic fact that in this time of nonstop communication, the potential for social blunders has never been quite so ripe. Here at last is a collection of advice on modern manners, solutions for old-fashioned conundrums, and everything in between. These are all the things your mother should have taught you, but if she didn't (or you didn't listen), this book will.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allen Unwin
• Release date: Oct 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781742696447

Book preview

What your

mother

should’ve

told you

What your

mother

should’ve

told you

and nobody else will

natalie reilly

First published in 2012

Copyright © Natalie Reilly 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Fairfax Books, an imprint of

Allen & Unwin

Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

from the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74237 942 5

Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Introduction

Life lessons

How to be happy

How to make friends

How to survive a setback

How to appear smarter

How to say no

How to handle yourself in an argument

How to speak in public

How to budget like you mean it

How to not let money rule your life

How to reduce your carbon footprint at home

Modern manners

How to turn down a big invitation

How to react to a gift you don’t like

How to properly introduce yourself or someone else

How to be a good neighbour

How to deal with passive aggression

How to apologise properly

How to politely refuse advice

How to behave at a funeral

Tricky situations

How to escape a party bore

How to leave a party early

How to react to an insult

How to respond to a nosy question

How to respond to too much information

What to say in an awkward chance meeting

What to say when you don’t know what to say

How to make small talk

How to be silent

How to handle a bad housemate

How to respond to panhandlers

Family

How to cope with challenging in-laws

How to deal with other people’s misbehaving kids

How to handle a tantrum

How to cope with a difficult sibling

How to succeed as a stepparent

How to be a good godparent

How to choose a last-minute gift for your dad or your mum

How to enjoy yourself at Christmas

Love & relationships

How to flirt

How to ask out your crush

How to escape a bad date

How to handle a break-up

How to relate to your ex’s friends

How to handle a negative friend

How to repair a friendship gone sour

How to be the best bridesmaid ever

Food & wine

How to get into a no-reservations restaurant

How to test wine

How to properly match wine to food

How to host the perfect dinner party

How to have perfect table manners

How to send back a dish

What to do if you don’t like what you’ve been served

Travel

How to pack a suitcase

How to observe in-flight etiquette

How to be a good houseguest

How to take care of a borrowed car

How to merge in traffic

How to handle road rage

Social media & technology

How to observe mobile phone etiquette

How to respond to online gossip

How to untag yourself from a Facebook photo

How to extricate yourself from Facebook

How to get more followers on Twitter

How to observe online dating etiquette

Work

How to work smart not hard

How to blitz an interview

How to ask for a pay rise

How to get more from a business meeting

How to recover from an email faux pas

How to deal with a loud co-worker

How to give negative feedback

How to disagree with your boss

How to respond to radio silence

A final word

Introduction

A movie critic once wrote the reason he chose his occupation was not because he was an expert on movies but because he had a passion for them not shared by many other people.

It’s the same for me with giving advice. It may not always have been solicited, but my passion for giving it has never waned. I consider it a Reilly family gift – handed down from generation to generation.

My grandfather once approached a successful AFL player to tell him he would be better off playing Rugby League. My father, too, was famous for doling out the occasional hard truth – for which his justification was always, ‘If I don’t tell you, nobody else will.’

But if that was Dad’s motto, my mum’s was: ‘Before you judge someone, walk a mile in their shoes.’ And luckily some of Mum’s compassion moderated the more, some might say, ‘tough love’ tendencies of my compulsive advising.

By my 20s, I found myself the Agony Aunt not just for my friends, but for my sister’s friends, and their friends - and so on. My boss called me ‘Miss Manners’ with only a hint of irony. And for that, I sent her a thank you note.

I knew things had reached a whole new level when a person I’d just met asked for career advice. ‘Well, Sally—’ I began. ‘It’s Sophie,’ she said, ‘but go on.’

And so, when the opportunity arose to write a book about all the things people should know these days, I jumped at it. My aim is to give you up-to-date information on everything from modern manners to lessons on life.

These opinions are not off the top of my head, but have been painstakingly researched, for which I’d like to thank Google and the myriad lessons in my own life, which I’ve had to learn the hard way.

Throughout this book you may notice a few recurring themes, like the fact that when people behave badly, it’s usually because they’re scared; and that being the bigger bloke is often its own reward. These are guidelines I try to live by (albeit imperfectly), and you should find they’ll see you through almost every situation.

Other than that, my advice is to cherry-pick what works for you. Some of what I have to say might be a little hard to swallow, but advice without truth is merely trite. And while truthful advice runs the risk of offending, it’s a risk, dear reader, I’m willing to take. Because, as my father said, if I don’t tell you ...

Life lessons

How to be happy

We’re always encouraged to do what makes us happy, but the catch is that what we think will make us happy and what actually makes us happy are often wildly contradictory. Besides which, a little bit of pessimism is actually good for you – it’s unrealistic to expect to be happy all the time.

If you’ve been down in the dumps for months now, or you’ve lost a loved one or your job, or you’ve broken